A Chrysler employee works the assembly line at the Jefferson North Assembly plant in Detroit

Sponsored Links

Thousands more — including Paul Roberts, who was laid off for about 30 months — have spent fruitless hours searching online for the 6,500 Michigan jobs the Detroit Three have added since 2009.

Pilch's and Roberts' experiences illustrate the hope and frustration of the auto industry's continuing recovery: For every person who gets a coveted job on the line, hundreds more don't.

Most assembly line production jobs require a high school diploma or GED, and for the Detroit Three, all start at $15.78 per hour.

Under the existing systems, many determined job seekers won't get a chance to apply for about 5,000 new jobs that Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC and General Motors Co. are expected to add in the next year in metro Detroit and Toledo, Ohio.

In many cases, hourly postings on jobs sites have been kept quiet, giving de facto preference to people who know someone in the plants through a commonly used employee referral process.

GM said it likes using an employee referral system because it yields quality workers, and employees like the system. Ford, which also uses some referrals, doesn't have a set method and even experimented last year in opening hiring to the masses in Louisville, Ky. In one week, 17,000 applied for just 1,800 jobs that started in May.

Chrysler said it doesn't use explicit employee referrals and hires only from online applications at its website. But job seekers, claiming favoritism, complained they wouldn't learn about the postings in enough time to apply. The company started an e-mail alert system this month to tell those who sign up when jobs are open.

To be sure, many would-be applicants or hopefuls are not qualified to work in factories. And automakers also have lists of employees laid off at certain locations who are eligible for transfer to factories that need workers under complicated terms of UAW contracts.

Still, there are qualified applicants who say they can't get into the pool of applicants or that openings are unfairly restricted to what they see as an inner circle of connected workers.

"It almost seems like it's a secret," said Roberts. "I don't have any felonies or anything, you know? It just seems I should have an opportunity at least."

Roberts recently learned that a former co-worker now works for GM. He called her to ask about jobs; she might give him a referral.

Reliance on referrals

GM appears to rely more on referrals than either of its domestic rivals.

For instance, employees referred nearly all the 200 new hires added this year at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant, people familiar with the situation said.

GM spokesman Bill Grotz said GM uses more than just referrals in its hiring, including posting on sites such as http://us.jobs. GM also has started recruiting a few military veterans at job fairs, he said.

Detroit-Hamtramck GM worker Anthony Kotlarczyk gave a referral to a friend who currently works at the Ambassador Bridge for $8 an hour. That friend is still waiting for a call from GM.

"You get people who say, 'It's nepotism,'" Kotlarczyk said of the referral process. "If they open it to everyone, you'd have twenty, thirty thousand people come in here."

The three automakers have announced coming new jobs, but none was actively hiring as of last week.

When they do, they'll give transferring employees the first shot. The companies also sometimes hire from pools of temporary workers, who often got their initial job through referrals.

Chrysler, Ford and GM declined to say how many recent hires had connections to current employees, and they said they didn't track how many had been previously unemployed.

Transfers and temps

Most of the new jobs at Ford's Michigan Assembly were split between transfers and workers who had been temporary employees, some for as long as 12 years. Temporary workers are covered by the contract but do not have job security like full-time employees.

The remaining 20 percent of the new jobs went to newly hired temporary workers, said Bill Johnson, chairman of UAW Local 900. Many Local 900 workers were disappointed when Ford didn't use any employee referrals for those remaining jobs, he said.

Chrysler takes only online applications at www.chryslercareers.com — the only careers site among the Detroit Three to accept applications for hourly jobs, in addition to salaried ones.

The job postings are closed when Chrysler receives a certain number of applications.

"We don't want people to have the anticipation of a position when there are thousands of people ahead of them," said Rick Munson, who oversees human resource business systems.

Derek Johnson of Detroit is looking elsewhere after he applied on Chrysler's jobs site but did not hear back. Johnson, 22, has been laid off for a year.

"I think there's options," he said of the Detroit job market.

Even if Johnson can't land one of the Detroit Three's new jobs, other jobs will probably open up as those who accept primo auto industry jobs leave their current positions, said Kristin Dziczek, director of the Center for Automotive Research's labor group.

"The whole state benefits when the auto industry is doing well," Dziczek said. "That opens up lots of other opportunities for job seekers in the economy."

For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

Posted | Updated

USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines.